Featured Post

Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

Image
The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Play that song again: Blind Man's Song @ThePleasance


Theatre Re's Blind Man's Song is a fascinating meditation on the subject of dreams and immagination. For just over an hour you are mostly entranced by the story unfolding before you.

As the theatre opens you are informed that the best views were from the back of the theatre. This was intriguing (and counter-intuitive). But here the seating has been reduced at The Pleasance, making the space more intimate than usual.

Taking my seat, I couldn't help but notice the eerie haze that hung over the stage at the begining. What space were we staring at?

The main character, a blind musician soon enters. The space turns out to be his room. He is tapping about to find his way and soon this becomes the soundtrack.


As he lies down on his bed, alone, a man and woman appear. Are they his immagination? Are they the life he wants to lead? It is all up for speculation as physical theatre, mime, sounds and illusion combine to tell a series of stories about love, hope and mystery.

The piece took inspiration from interviews with blind and visually impaired people. It's strength is in its power to communicate without words.

You are drawn into the world through the minimalist soundtrack performed on stage by Alex Judd. He is the blind man. It amplifies noises onstage reflecting the world of the visually impaired. A loop pedal combines these sounds with violin and keyboard.

Music and movement become dreamlike. Although being minimalist music it at times felt a bit like a recurring dream... Not all the segments felt unique and some of the wonderment was lost as the piece progresses. At times you get the sense that you had already seen that.

But perhaps this is the point of it all and part of the frustration of minimalism, and being blind. Employing various theatrical tricks, director, conceiver and performer Guillaume Pigé along with his co-performer Selma Roth elegantly move about. Their faces shielded from view. But you also get the sense that this work could be more.

The piece debuted at the 2015 International Mime Festival and is at The Pleasance until 15 May. Dates follow in May in Hereford, Oxford, Chippenham and Liverpool before they head to Germany and France.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

Photo credit: Richard Davenport

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...